When I was growing up it never occurred to me that the United Nations would issue a report in my lifetime citing America for a ‘deplorable’ human rights record. Part of that was a bit of innocence I had about our judicial system, but I never expected to see something like this:
A summary from the report follows below. But the body of the document doesn’t pull any punches either.
Here is what Alston says about at least five detainee deaths at Guantánamo: “The Department of Defense provided little public information about any of the five detainee deaths.”
He calls wrongheaded the failure of the United States to track civilian casualties in Iraq or Afghanistan, and he thinks that with a few rare exceptions, the military has done a pitiful job holding soldiers — or even more so, their superior officers — accountable for unlawful killing in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Numerous other cases have either been inadequately investigated or senior officers have used administrative (non-judicial) proceedings instead of criminal prosecutions,” he wrote. “It appears that no U.S. officer above the rank of major has ever been prosecuted for the wrongful actions of the personnel under his or her command.”
He notes “credible reports” of at least five deaths caused by torture at the hands of the CIA. Except for one case of a CIA contractor, however, “No investigation has ever been released and alleged CIA involvement has never been publicly confirmed or denied.”
Alston doesn’t think the Justice Department has done a bang-up job either. “U.S. prosecutors have failed to use the laws on the books to investigate and prosecute (contractors) and civilian agents for wrongful deaths, including, in some cases, deaths credibly alleged to have resulted from torture and abuse.”
Without naming President Obama, Alston clearly thinks the president’s plan to simply move on won’t work. “A refusal to look back inevitably means moving forward in blindness,” he wrote. Instead, he advocates a “national ‘commission of inquiry’ tasked with carrying out an independent, systematic and sustained investigation of policies and practices that lead to deaths and other abuses.”
We like to debate interrogation techniques. The real debate should be about murder. I’m not surprised that the UN understands this. Why don’t we?
I have been wondering when someone would mention that whatever the definition of torture, a fair number of prisoners have died in US custody and no one has been prosecuted. There is no ethical, unhypocritical way for a nation which has been lecturing the world on human rights for decades to look ahead past this. There is no way for a government of laws to ignore it.
American Infallible has a very strong hold on the white population.
I say white because while non-whites can also have this view, the fact of what was historically done to THEM makes it far less prevalent. When the boot of reality is shoved into your face it’s hard to forget the tread mark.
My white ancestors came here to escape economic and religious oppression. But it was a long time ago, and many of them seem to have forgotten what it’s like to be in the minority.
Didn’t the Puritans immediately oppress anyone they could when they got here too? It has a long tradition in this country.
It has a long tradition everywhere in the world. We’re not “special” in that regard any more than we’re exceptional or special in our virtues.
I disagree in terms of exceptional in some of our virtues but that’s not really part of the discussion right now.
Yes, I’m not saying we are extra oppressive, merely that we are not special globally speaking in that regard.
What does it take for the UN to list the United States as a “rogue nation”. Because that’s the long and short of it. (Yes, yes, I know, complicated international corporate/monetary interests would keep that from ever happening. Sigh..gee, that’s too bad, isn’t it…)
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Interrogation and videotaping of detainees at Guanánamo
This report (pdf) by Seton Hall University, reveals the following:
I. A report issued by a Lieutenant General of the United States Army indicates that more than 24,000 interrogations have been conducted at Guantánamo since 2002.
II. A second report, produced almost simultaneously by the Surgeon General of the United States Army, reveals that all interrogations conducted at Guantánamo were videotaped. Thus, many videotapes documenting Guantánamo interrogations do or did exist.
III. An infrastructure for videotaping exists at Guantánamo.
IV. The Central Intelligence Agency is just one of many entities that interrogated detainees in Guantánamo.
V. Each of these entities has identical motives to destroy taped investigations as has the Central Intelligence Agency, and each can apply to its destruction of tapes an identical justification: its interest in “protecting” the interrogators. Any videotapes that may still exist are vulnerable to destruction if they have not already been destroyed.
VI. Because the Government kept detailed logs of interrogations, it is readily ascertainable which videotapes still exist and which tapes have been destroyed. Such an inquiry is crucial to the evaluation–as required by Combatant Status Review Tribunal procedures, the Military Commission Act, and the Detainee Treatment Act–of the reliability of hearsay evidence against a detainee.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."We don’t understand this business about torture and murders and whatever because we don’t have to. We are the Empire and we make the rules; we also decide when and where they can be broken. This is what empires do so get used to it, BooMan. As to shame, that’s for wimps and losers and those who don’t have the power.
Odd thing: Americans still believe in civil rights, leastwise for themselves and consider that they are models of virtue for the rest of humanity. Their pride is like overwhelming.
Many Americans seem to have a concept of civil rights that’s basically equals self-gratification.
There’s no understanding of what’s done in our name because a way of life based on self-gratification doesn’t require it.